


Bad Coffee

by yukiawison



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Diners, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 07:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16739566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukiawison/pseuds/yukiawison
Summary: “That guy you like is at table six.”“Shut up Jerry.”(In which Gilbert frequents the Green Gables Diner for a certain red-headed waitress.)





	Bad Coffee

“That guy you like is at table six,” Jerry announced, waltzing into the kitchen and setting a tub of dirty dishes beside Anne, who was already up to her elbows in the current batch of plates and utensils and soup stained bowls.

“Shut up, Jerry,” Anne shot back.

“Diana said she’d switch sections with you, if you want to take his order.”

“Thank you, Jerry,” Anne said, thrusting her sponge and dish towel at him and combing through her mess of red hair with her fingers.

He laughed as she ducked out of the kitchen doors and into the front of the house at Green Gables Diner, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert’s place of work for the past two years.

“Take the coffee pot,” Anne’s best friend and most trusted companion, Diana Barry said. “He looks like he needs coffee. And I can’t give you a ride tonight, sorry. I’ve got a film screening for French cinema right after. I’d skip, but attendance is required...even though Jerry’s seen the movie we’re watching a million times and offered to help me with translations and…”

“I’ll be fine, Diana. I like the walk anyway,” Anne said, scooping up the coffee pot.

“Good luck, Anne,” Diana said, with a cheeky smirk and flip of her ponytail over her shoulder.

“We’re just friends, Diana. Not even, really. We’re friendly acquaintances.” Anne replied, but she felt heat rise to her freckled cheeks. She passed over the dirt smudged tile, her work flats clicking, and arrived at table six.

“Welcome to Green Gables Diner. Our soup and pie of the day are minestrone and lemon meringue...respectively. Can I get you started with something to drink?”

“Are you required to give the speech every time?” Gilbert Blythe said, smiling at her with tired eyes. The table was covered with notes and books and chewed up pens (an unfortunate habit born of nervousness).

“Yes, I am,” Anne replied crisply. “Would you like some coffee, Gilbert?”

“Yes please, Anne,” he said, flipping over the coffee cup on his table. “Thank you,” he said, as she poured.

“Is the pre-med track really as back breaking as you make it look?” She asked.

He shrugged. “Is waitressing as easy as _you_ make it look?”

“No,” she deadpanned, recalling the many times she’d dropped entire trays of food, tripped over her own feet, and spilled ice water in people’s laps. “You’re evading the question, Gilbert.”

Gilbert sighed exaggeratedly. “I’m sure it’s easier when you aren’t working night shifts and behind in everything, thus utterly unprepared for exams.”

Anne had met Gilbert Blythe two months ago, when he started occupying corners of the diner for the entirety of her shift, subsisting on a cup of soup or slice of pie and cups upon cups of watered down coffee.

Anne felt a twinge of sympathy. She knew the challenges of paying your own way through school while trying to maintain good grades. Matthew and Marilla had done all they could for her, but money at Green Gables had always been tight and it was only natural that she’d spend her weekends working double shifts to cover expenses.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That sounds tough, having to do all that on your own.”

Gilbert looked at her intently. “It’s okay.”

“I just know what that’s like, to be on your own. Before I got adopted I was by myself a lot of the time. And now I’m here and I miss my adoptive parents more than anything. It’s hard when you realize that your success or your failure is entirely up to you.” Anne realized she’d been ranting at him. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “And I’m sure you’re a success and not a failure.”

Anne fumbled with her apron. “Well then, what can I get for you?”

“A slice of the pie, please.”

“Coming right up.”

***  
Gilbert Blythe noticed Anne the first time he came in the diner. She was scrubbing tables and humming off key. She scarcely looked up when he came in, though it was her job to seat new customers.

She spoke with such confidence and lofty imagination. He’d heard her call the diner’s mashed potatoes the clouds of angels and their root beer floats fit for royalty. He’d found she was a student too, of English education. She told him once, while he was lurking in a booth as she cleared tables, that she wanted to teach middle school to catch all the kids at their nastiest but in the most need of a kindred spirit.

Sometimes she distracted him from his work. The letters on the pages of his heavy chemistry and biology textbooks would begin to swim and he’d look up to find her gliding from table to table, red hair tied into unruly braids and smile bright. If he was being entirely honest with himself (which, admittedly, he rarely was) he had a bit of a crush.

Of course he’d never considered telling Anne this. He didn’t even see her outside of the diner. In his daydreams he’d show up to the diner with roses or wildflowers, and spill his heart out under the florescent lights.

Now, Gilbert sat and took tiny bites of his pie. He didn’t have the money to spare for a real meal. Most of his meals came from the 7-11 where he worked. Late at night, during his graveyard shifts, he’d gnaw on pieces of beef jerky and sip lukewarm coffee. The diner’s coffee was only fractionally better, but Anne had been refilling it, so Gilbert had been drinking it. It was near closing time. He’d gotten through a sizable portion of the material for his anatomy exam, and his ears were ringing with details of organ function and bone development.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright on your own?” Diana was saying to Anne. “Walking all that way?”

“It’s not as far as you’re making it out to be.”

“But the cold...and it gets dark so early now. I could ask Jerry to—“

“Don’t ask Jerry anything,” Anne said firmly, hand on her hip. “I’m fine.”

She refilled Gilbert’s coffee a little while later.

“I heard Diana say you were walking home in the dark,” he began, tone cautious.

“Aren’t you the clever eavesdropper?”

Gilbert flushed. “I could give you a ride, if you’d like?”

“I’m quite alright, thank you. Check?”

“Yes, please. You’re sure?”

Anne nodded. “I can take care of myself Gilbert,” she said.

“Of course you can.”

By chance, he and Anne exited the building at the same time. The moon was a pale sliver above them and there was a chill.

“Are you sure?” He muttered, as she pulled her thin coat around her. Her uniform fell just above her knees and didn’t look terribly warm.

“Alright,” she relented, exhaling an irritated sigh. “My place is close by.”

They stared at the stars as he drove.

“They make you feel small, don’t they?” Anne said. Gilbert felt self-conscious about the pitiful air freshener and receipt covered floors of his piece of junk car.

“They do,” he echoed.

“You know I get the feeling that I’m completely insignificant from time to time? Usually when I’m taking back eggs that Jerry cooked the wrong way, but looking at the stars I do too. I feel like none of it matters. All this hard work is going to be for nothing.”

“It isn’t Anne,” he said.

“Well I’m sure you’ll be a lovely doctor. And you can talk to people so they like you. You’re always focused.”

“I’m not,” he said. They had pulled up to the address she’d given him. He wondered if this was his first and last chance to talk to her outside of the diner. “And I think you wildly underestimate yourself.”

She smiled, just slightly. “Maybe I do. Thank you for the ride.”

“Anne?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think I could see you somewhere you don’t have to read me the specials before you talk?”

She considered the question and Gilbert held his breath.

“I think I’d like that,” she said at last. And she smiled. And it was worth a million cups of bad coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanksgiving break’s nearly over and I’m rewatching Anne instead of doing my homework. :(((


End file.
